190 PKOSERPIXA. 



is always to be remembered as one of massive practical 

 convenience only ; and the more subtle arborescence of 

 the infinitely varying structures may be followed, like a 

 human genealogy, as far as we please, afterwards ; when 

 once we have got our common plants clearly arranged 

 and intelligibly named. 



22. But now we find ourselves in the presence of a 

 new difficulty, the greatest we have to deal with in the 

 whole matter. 



One new nomenclature, to be thoroughly good, must 

 be acceptable to scholars in the five great languages, 

 Greek, Latin, French, Italian, and English ; and it 

 must be acceptable by them in teaching the native chil- 

 dren of each country. I shall not be satisfied, unless I 

 can feel that the little maids w r ho gather their first 

 violets under the Acropolis rock, may receive for them 

 ^Eschylean words again with joy. I shall not be con- 

 tent, unless the mothers watching their children at play 

 in the Ceramicus of Paris, under the scarred ruins of her 

 Kings' palace, may yet teach them there to know the 

 flowers which the Maid of Orleans gathered at Dom- 

 remy. I shall not be satisfied unless every word I ask 

 from the lips of the children of Florence and Rome, may 

 enable them better to praise the flowers that are chosen 

 by the hand of Matilda,* and bloom around the tomb 

 of Virgil. 



* " Cantando, e scegliendo fior di fiore 



Onde era picta tutta la suavia." Purg., xxviii. 35. 



